Posts tagged “Semantic Web”

Words are symbolic indications and/or conveyors of meaning and are not that meaning in themselves.

Meaning is found, stored, and manipulated in our minds. This is why different languages are capable, in varying degrees of usefulness, to convey meaning which is very similar to that found via the symbols of any other.

It It is also the reason why there are words indicating meaning that are not found in other languages; or, if found in a different language, the other language requires more of its own structure, dynamics, and resonance to convey the same meaning.

For example: the words ‘déjà vu’ in French are found in German ‘schon gesehen’ and in English ‘already seen’, but these phrases do not convey the full meaning found in the French version. To counter this deficit, their meaning in other languages must be ‘constructed’ out of or ‘fortified’ by the careful use of longer strings of symbols. This additional construction and/or fortification may even fail at times. This is often where the word phrase from a different language is simply added to the language in which the concept is missing.

This same situation is found in the literature of many languages. The words used to convey meaning are condensed and may contain more meaning than is usually the case. In this regard, even the person reading/hearing the words may not possess the competence necessary to catch this condensed meaning in its fullness.

Mathematical expressions, albeit more precise, are also indications of meaning. They are more robust in their formulation, but at ever-increasing depth or scope, even they may fail to reliably or conveniently convey meaning.

Our understanding of what words mean is not always accurate, but where our mutual understanding of the meaning of words overlaps, and the degree to which they overlap, is where their meaning can be shared.

Our own personal understanding of words is measured by our ability to apply their meaning in our lives.

There is also a false meme, which I would like to clarify.

“Knowledge is Power!”

It is wrongly said that ‘Knowledge is power’. The truth is another: Knowledge is the measure of usefulness of what we understand and is the only true expression of its ‘power’.

The value of Knowledge is found in its usefulness and not in its possession.

There are other connections to some new developments in mathematics involving what is called ‘inversive geometry’.

Example: (oversimplified for clarity)

If we think of say… the point [x, y, z] in space, we may assign x, y, and z any number value except where one of these coordinates gets involved in division where 0 is not allowed (up to this point in common mathematics) as a denominator. x/z is not allowed when z=0, for example.

Now, if we are dealing with interiority, numbers are replaced by relationships, such as [father, loves, son].

What if the son has died? Is the relationship still valid?

The answer to this question lies within the interior of those involved in the relation.

They are wonderful tools to explain much of our world, but lack ‘The Right Stuff’ to handle the metaphysical underpinnings of anything near a Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language , or a Philosophy of Learning.

This is, because Category Theory specialises on roughly half of the Noosphere. It does a wonderful job on exteriority, but cannot sufficiently describe nor comprehensively access interiority.

Therefore, as is the case with Semiotics, has limited metaphysical value with respect to philosophy in general.

For example:philosophies of mind, language, or learning are not possible using only category theoretical tools and/or semiotics.

“The ultimate purpose of the visualisation process is to gain Knowledge of the original System. When this succeeds (when the diagram commutes) then the result is a ‘truth’ relationship between the Knowledge and the System. When this process breaks down and we fail to deduce correct conclusions then the diagram does not commute.”

I want to also comment on Figure 3 (which also exposes missing or false premises in the paper), but I will wait until I have discussed the assertions in the quote above which the authors of this paper reference, accept, and wish to justify/confirm.

1) The purpose of a representation is NOT to gain knowledge; rather, to express knowledge. Also, truth has nothing to do with knowledge except when that value is imposed upon it for some purpose. Truth value is a value that knowledge may or not ‘attend’ (participate in).

1a) The ‘truth value’ of the System (‘system’ is a false paradigm [later, perhaps] and a term that I also vehemently disagree with) does not always enter into the ‘dialogue’ between any knowledge that is represented and the observer interpreting that knowledge.

2) The interpretation of a representation is not to “deduce correct conclusions”; rather, to understand the meaning (semantics and epistemology) of what is represented. ‘Correct’ understanding is not exclusive to understanding nor is it necessary or sufficient for understanding a representation, because that understanding finds expression in the observer.

2a) ‘Correct’, as used in this paragraph, is coming from the outside (via the choice of which data [see Fig. 3] is represented to the observer) and may have no correspondence (hence may never ever commute) whatever to what that term means for the observer.

The authors are only talking about ontologies. That is a contrived and provincial look at the subject they are supposing to examine.

There may (and usually are) artefacts inherent in any collection and collation of data. The observer is forced to make ‘right’ (‘correct’) conclusions from that data which those who collected it have ‘seeded’ (tainted) with their own volition.

‘System’ (systematising) anything is Reductionism. This disqualifies the procedure at its outset.

They are proving essentially that manipulation leads to a ‘correct’ (their chosen version) representation of a ‘truth’ value.

I could tie my shoelaces into some kind of knot and think it were a ‘correct’ way to do so if the arrows indicate this. This is why paying too much attention to a navigation system can have one finding themselves at the bottom of a river!

The paper contains assumptions that are overlooked and terms that are never adequately defined! How can you name variables without defining their meaning? They then serve no purpose and must be removed from domain of discourse.

Categorical structures are highly portable, but they can describe/express only part of what is there. There are structure, dynamics, and resonance that ontology and functionalism completely turns a blind eye to.

The qualities of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Clarity,… (even Falsehood, Badness, Ugliness, Obscurity,…) can be defined and identified within a knowledge representation if the representation is not restricted to ontology alone.

In order to express these qualities in semiotics and category theory, they must first be ontologised funtionally (reduced). Trying to grasp them with tools restricted to semiotics and category theory is like grasping into thin air.

That is actually the point I’m trying to make. Category Theory, and even Semiotics, each have their utility, but they are no match for the challenge of a complete representation of knowledge.

Here an excerpt from a short summary of a paper I am writing that provides some context to answer this question:

What Knowledge is not:

Knowledge is not very well understood so I’ll briefly point out some of the reasons why we’ve been unable to precisely define what knowledge is thus far. Humanity has made numerous attempts at defining knowledge. Plato taughtthat justified truth and belief are required for something to be considered knowledge.

Throughout the history of the theory of knowledge (epistemology), others have done their best to add to Plato’s work or create new or more comprehensive definitions in their attempts to ‘contain’ the meaning of meaning (knowledge). All of these efforts have failed for one reason or another.

Using truth value and ‘justification’ as a basis for knowledge or introducing broader definitions or finer classifications can only fail.

I will now provide a small set of examples of why this is so.

Truth value is only a value that knowledge may attend.

Knowledge can be true or false, justified or unjustified, because

knowledge is the meaning of meaning

What about false or fictitious knowledge? [Here’s the reason why I say no.]

Their perfectly valid structure and dynamics are ignored by classifying them as something else than what they are. Differences in culture or language even make no difference, because the objects being referred to have meaning that transcends language barriers.

Another problem is that knowledge is often thought to be primarily semantics or even ontology based. Both of these cannot be true for many reasons. In the first case (semantics):

There already exists knowledge structure and dynamics for objects we cannot or will not yet know.

The same is true for objects to which meaning has not yet been assigned, such as ideas, connections and perspectives that we’re not yet aware of or have forgotten. Their meaning is never clear until we’ve become aware of or remember them.

In the second case (ontology): collations that are fed ontological framing are necessarily bound to memory, initial conditions of some kind and/or association in terms of space, time, order, context, relation,… We build whole catalogues, dictionaries and theories about them: Triads, diads, quints, ontology charts, neural networks, semiotics and even the current research in linguistics are examples.

Even if an ontology or set of them attempts to represent intrinsic meaning, it can only do so in a descriptive ‘extrinsic’ way. An ontology, no matter how sophisticated, is incapable of generating the purpose of even its own inception, not to mention the purpose of the objects to which it corresponds.

The knowledge is not coming from the data itself, it is always coming from the observer of the data, even if that observer is an algorithm.

Therefore ontology-based semantic analysis can only produce the artefacts of knowledge, such as search results, association to other objects, ‘knowledge graphs’ like Cayley,…

Real knowledge precedes, transcends and includes our conceptions, cognitive processes, perception, communication, reasoning and is more than simply related to our capacity of acknowledgement.

In fact knowledge cannot even be completely systematised; it can only be interacted with using ever increasing precision.

[For those interested, my summary is found at: A Precise Definition of Knowledge – Knowledge Representation as a Means to Define the Meaning of Meaning Precisely: http://bit.ly/2pA8Y8Y

This is changing, but mathematics is incapable at this time of comprehensively describing epistemology, whereas, philosophy can.

Hence; mathematics is restrained to pure ontology. It does not reach far enough into the universe to distinguish anything other than ontologies. This will change soon. I am working on exactly this problem. See http://mathematica-universalis.com for more information on my work. (I’m not selling anything on this site.)

Also, mathematics cannot be done without expressing some kind of philosophy to underlie any axioms which it needs to function.

PROOF:

Implication is a ‘given’ in mathematics. It assumes a relation which we call implication. Mathematics certainly ‘consumes’ them as a means to create inferences, but the inference form, the antecedent, and the consequent are implicit axioms based upon an underlying metaphysics.

Ergo: philosophy is more general and universal than mathematics.

Often epistemology is considered separate from metaphysics, but that is incorrect, because you cannot answer questions as to ‘How do we know?” without an underlying metaphysical framework within which such a question and answer can be considered.